


A Taste of His Own Medicine

by diabhals



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (TV 2016)
Genre: (again don't think about the timeline), M/M, Post-WWI, Reunion, Roaring 20s AU, also yes helene is playing matchmaker, and the fact that they're probably a little ooc, battle of borodino reluctantly acknowledged, i'm going off great comet and fanfic, please ignore the timeline, they get drunk and talk about feelings, ~Interesting~ relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:40:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29224830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diabhals/pseuds/diabhals
Summary: By the time they reach the stairs, Anatole is limping unevenly, leaning on his cane. Some morbid part of Fedya wants to ask what happened: without an explanation, his mind is all too willing to fill in the gaps. Shrapnel. Gangrene. Compartment Syndrome. Partial paralysis. Medical terms the field doctors bandied around, words that splinter against Anatole’s beauty.In the end, all he does ask, seeing Anatole struggle with the stairs, is: “Does it hurt?”Anatole looks up. For a moment, his face is blank, before he flashes a brilliant smile.“Oh, no, mon cher.” Leaning down, he knocks on his shin, and it rings dully. “It’s wood!”
Relationships: Fyodor "Fedya" Ivanovich Dolokhov/Anatole Vasilyevich Kuragin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	A Taste of His Own Medicine

The heat is a solid wall, burning his frozen cheeks; it smells of alcohol and expensive perfume — or cheap perfume, hell, Fedya wouldn’t know. It smells like Hélène, and she has taste, so he’d err on the side of expensive. 

It  _ looks _ like Hélène, if she was somehow a hotel ballroom: diamond-drenched, gold-encrusted, with sprays of flowers in every alcove. There’s a full jazz orchestra playing on a dais, just as sharply-dressed as a sea of sharply-dressed men, twirling shoals of silvery, swishing women through an energetic dance — just trying to follow it makes Fedya’s head spin, and he hasn’t even started on the champagne fountain. 

_ So much for the 18th Amendment, _ he thinks, as if his usual defensive sarcasm will work on his own mind and negate the fact that he’s completely, utterly out of his depth. 

Part of him, an insistent, humming part, says  _ leave _ . 

And yet —

And yet, Hélène said Anatole would be here. Somehow, that’s enough to make him stay — and it’s typical, really.  _ Anatole _ has always been enough to make Fedya do a whole number of idiotic things, staying at a party he never wanted to go to in the first place being the least among them. Aiding and abetting a harebrained scheme to elope with an engaged heiress is perhaps the one that stands out, but it’s been like that since they first met: Anatole waltzing through life, making horrible messes, and Fedya dutifully cleaning them up.

So he stays, loosening his tie a little as he scans the dance floor for that flash of blond. The song’s changed, but it seems like they never stop, spinning tops of skirts and suits that whirl right past him so fast it makes his head spin. Black, brown, auburn hair — a glut of blonds, of course, but none of them are Anatole, Fedya would recognise his particular shade of head-turning blond from the other side of no man’s land. 

Shit, he’s supposed to be good at this. Spotting people. Looking for the lone light, a cigarette flickering in a distant trench; Denisov used to joke that Fedya Dolokhov never missed a shot. But in the trenches, with his little finger curled around a trigger, the world seemed to still, every distant flash of a shell slowed to a splashing of orange-red ink into the endless sea of the black sky. Here, it feels like the world is speeding up, dancing to the tune of that godawful music that’s worming its way into his brain in the form of a headache.

Perhaps Anatole isn’t here. He’d be dancing if he was, and the dance floor is suspiciously devoid of smug little twats. Fedya just sighs; he’s too sober for this. Heading towards the nearest tray of alcoholic drinks, he’s just about made up his mind to get sloshed and leave, when —

He throws a glance towards one of the alcoves, plush with a velvet chaise lounge, a drooping palm tree —  _ who puts a palm tree in a  _ **_ballroom_ ** — and there he is. Anatole. Sat on the chaise with a champagne flute in one hand and a girl on his knee, looking like the epicentre of a Rembrandt painting. Jacket discarded somewhere, tie undone, a study in careful dishevelment. 

Their eyes meet over the throng; Fedya feels something wrench in his chest, relief or annoyance or —  _ fear _ . 

Anatole winks. Whatever it was that twisted in Fedya’s chest rushes down to his stomach, a pool of frustrated heat.

That’s it; Fedya takes a breath and shoves his way through the crowd, a few courtesy  _ sorry  _ and  _ excuse me _ s tossed out before he finally bursts free on the other side -- the closest he’s been to Anatole in years.

“Fedya!  _ Mon cher _ , it’s been too long —” Throwing back the last of his champagne, Anatole gives Fedya a glittering smile. “Oh, run along Dunia, go and dance-” The girl slides off Anatole’s lap, plunging to the fray, and he pats a spot on the chaise by his side. 

Somehow, Fedya can’t stop himself from smiling. Evidently four years, a revolution and a war haven’t changed Anatole one bit. You can kick the Kuragin out of Moscow, but you can’t take Moscow out of the Kuragin. 

“Anatole Kuragin, in the flesh.”

“What else would I be? In the nude? I’m afraid you’ve come a little early for that.”

“Perhaps that’s for the better.”

“Oh, you wound me. Have you had a drink yet?” Even Anatole seems to have sped up, if that’s possible, his usually mercurial personality becoming almost frenetic. 

Fedya shakes his head; before he can blink, there’s a glass of champagne in his hand. Even quicker and he’s dumped half of it down his throat, relishing in the expensive burn. 

“What’ve you been up to, then?” He asks, bracing himself for the kind of drunken romps only Anatole seems capable of getting himself into. “Terrifying New York high society?”

Anatole just shrugs. “Oh, you know — there’s been a ballerina here or there, but Hélène won’t let me anywhere near the heiresses, which is frankly  _ hypocritical _ , I’m beginning to think she just wants them all to herself-” he breaks off mid-ramble, typical, but - it doesn’t sit right. “What about you,  _ mon ami _ ?”

“Nothing as interesting as that, unfortunately.” Fedya could sketch out the intervening years: four of them rotting in a trench, the past two wandering, directionless, through Europe until Hélène all but dragged him across the Atlantic. He  _ could _ , but it’s a pathetic picture, a mere charcoal sketch compared to Anatole’s vibrant canvas. “War comes with less dinner party stories than people seem to think.”

“You obviously haven’t been to the right dinner parties, then.” Anatole pours himself another glass from a bottle Fedya’s just noticed. With the light glancing off his flushed cheeks like this, he’s frustratingly  _ radiant _ , strawberry-blushed and intoxicating. “War produces plenty of amusing stories. I knew a man - boy, I suppose, we were all so young — I knew a boy in Ypres whose girl sent him some awful kind of hair cream. It smelt like something had died in the tin, but he insisted on wearing it, said it reminded him of her — I can’t imagine what she smelt like, then — anyway, he wore it to sleep one night, and we all woke up to a bloodcurdling scream. The scene we discovered when someone got a light was the boy with a cat-sized rat on his face, placidly eating the hair cream.”

Fedya snorts; every platoon had  _ that _ man. He’s surprised Anatole wasn’t  _ that _ man, with his kid-glove richness. Then again, perhaps he should be glad.  _ That man _ usually ended up dead, a gout of red, frothing lung-blood in the churned-up mud of no-man’s land, a swift bullet through the throat.

Anatole, though, is still here. 

After that story, an odd kind of quiet stretches between them, lined with music and snatches of other people’s conversation. Anatole makes some passing jabs about this man or that woman’s outfit, but they seem — flat. 

“Are you alright, Tolya?” The nickname slips out before Fedya can cram it back down his throat.  _ Idiot _ . As if he wasn’t the only one clinging to whatever they had before all this. Yet it still makes Anatole glance back from the dance floor, like he’s been caught in a childish lie.

“Of course I am,  _ mon cher _ .” Somehow both their glasses are empty again; Fedya goes to refill his, but Anatole gets there first, giving them both generous splashes. “Are you insinuating that you  _ care _ about me?” 

“It astonishes me, too,” Fedya ignores Anatole’s raised eyebrow in favour of gulping down more champagne. Still too sober to deal with this, with him, stoking the embers of a long-burning desire with painful skill. “But — I missed you.”

Anatole just hums, staring into his glass. His  _ already empty  _ glass, alarming even for a Kuragin. “I suppose I missed you too.”

_ Suppose _ . The word feels like a wound, no matter how much Fedya wishes it wouldn’t; he wants to throw it back, but the insult sticks in his throat. 

Quiet, again. Not proper silence, not with the orchestra and the people and the heat and the headache and the fact that he’s still too damn sober for any of this — but Anatole isn’t talking, and it takes Fedya a moment to realise why. 

Anatole’s hand has settled on Fedya’s knee, so light the touch is almost imperceptible. 

For a while, he just stares at it, a little uselessly. The subtlety of the gesture is so utterly  _ not _ Anatole that the worry gathering in Fedya’s chest only intensifies. Then again, it’s been so long since they saw each other last, since that one breathless kiss at the arse-end of France. 

“Fedya? Shall we continue this conversation somewhere more private?” Anatole murmurs, thumb brushing over the fabric of Fedya’s trousers. 

“Sorry, what?” This, coming from Anatole — the man who offered to suck Pierre Bezukhov off in a crowded bar. The man who probably would’ve gone through with it. 

“I’ve got a room here, come on —” that’s that, then; Anatole’s made up his mind, and all Fedya can do — all he’s ever able to do — is follow along. 

Anatole stands, and for the first time Fedya notices the cane that had been leaning against the chaise. It’s got the typical Kuragin elegance, a deep, smooth wood and elaborate gold handle -- yet, despite the ease with which he leans on it, 

They all have their war wounds; a bullet lingers under Fedya’s shoulder, pulsing with a merry ache as he follows Anatole through the ballroom. Still -- somehow he’d always assumed Anatole would remain untouched. Unchanged by his brief flirtation with war, just as his other flings seem to leave no dent in his perfect facade.

It’s only a facade, after all, though.

By the time they reach the stairs, Anatole is limping unevenly, leaning on his cane. Some morbid part of Fedya wants to ask what happened: without an explanation, his mind is all too willing to fill in the gaps. Shrapnel. Gangrene. Compartment Syndrome. Partial paralysis. Medical terms the field doctors bandied around, words that splinter against Anatole’s beauty.

In the end, all he does ask, seeing Anatole struggle with the stairs, is: “Does it hurt?”

Anatole looks up. For a moment, his face is blank, before he flashes a brilliant smile.

“Oh, no,  _ mon cher _ .” Leaning down, he knocks on his shin, and it rings dully. “It’s wood!”

_ “Oh _ .” 

They continue on in silence -- defiant silence, as Anatole’s knuckles turn white around the handle of his cane -- until they finally come to a door. A quick fumbling with keys, then -- 

Almost as soon as the door is open, Fedya is yanked inside, pinned to the wall. Anatole’s lips are against his, Anatole’s hands are settling on his hips, hot, heavy,  _ eager _ . He tastes deliciously, dizzyingly expensive, champagne-fizzy, the scent of his cologne coming in waves. Divine, devilish, turning with the nip of his teeth against Fedya’s lips:  _ oh _ , it would be so easy to give in, so easy to-

_ No _ . It’s all too much. He’s drowning, falling into Anatole like he always does, but this time it’s too much. This time, Fedya is tired, uncomfortable, hot; he finds himself pushing Anatole away, holding him at arm’s length. If this is the reassurance he came here for -- suddenly, he doesn’t want it.

That only seems to spur him on; his fingers intertwine with Fedya’s, kissing up his hand with the same breathless desperation of their last meeting. He’d wanted it, then — God, he’d wanted it, in the way only a half-starved soldier can; now it’s all too much, too fast, too—

Anatole’s free hand strays down, teasing at the buttons of Fedya’s trousers. 

“Fucking hell, Tolya!” he gasps, struggling to disentangle himself. The ache in his shoulder has become a throbbing pain. 

“What? You liked it last time.”

“That was —  _ God- _ ” Fedya moves away, taking a shuddering, steadying breath. Running a hand through his hair, he surveys the situation: the door still not closed, Anatole’s cane lying some way away on the floor. And, of course, the man himself, staring at him with a mixture of hurt and confusion. 

“That was four years ago,” Fedya says, shutting the door. “We’ve changed.”

“ _ You’ve _ changed,” says Anatole. 

“I have, actually.” Fedya tries to take another breath, stop the words that are clawing their way up his throat. Now isn’t the time; this certainly isn’t the place — “I have some self-respect, for one. I didn’t come all the way to America to be your fucking  _ toy _ .”

“Fedya, I—” the look on Anatole’s face almost makes him want to take it back — never mind how good it felt to say, at least half of it was a lie, anyway. His self-respect hasn’t survived the last two years. As for being Anatole’s toy? Well, it’s better than being his faithful hound.

“You’ve moved on. Fine.” Anatole says eventually. He limps over to where his cane landed, bending to pick it up. 

“I never said —”

“You didn’t have to.” Anatole straightens, voice a knife edge. “Is it because I’m — like this?” 

“Will you stop jumping to fucking conclusions?” Fedya can hear the blood pounding in his ears, feel Anatole’s gaze on him. “ _ Christ _ , Anatole. You thought I wanted to fuck you, now you think I hate you because you got your leg blown off — have you considered that maybe it’s neither? That you’re just drunk and upset?”

At that, Anatole laughs — a giddy, brittle laugh that sounds like it could collapse into sobbing at any moment. 

“I’m drunk.” He repeats. “And upset.”

“And you need to go to bed,” Fedya says, all the fight and frustration bleeding out of his voice for a moment. Seeing Anatole like this has always made him feel vaguely sick; at least before the war there was something he could do to make it stop. 

Now, it seems like whatever flimsy threads were holding Anatole together have snapped.

“I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve seen you in four years and you’re telling me to go to bed.” Anatole gives another shaky laugh, stepping further into the room. It’s exactly as Hélène advertised: glitteringly opulent. Dazzlingly alien.

“ _ I _ can’t believe this is the first time I’ve seen you in four years and you’re piss-drunk on priceless champagne.” No, that bit Fedya can believe; it’s finding out Anatole is just as damaged as the rest of them that he can’t accept. 

“Oh,  _ fuck off _ , Fedya.”

It takes a moment for him to pick up on the slight wobble in Anatole’s voice.  _ Shit _ . He’s made Anatole cry -- that’s a goddamn first, something Fedya might be proud of if it didn’t make his heart ache.

“No,  _ no  _ —” his body moves automatically, shoulder twinging as he pulls Anatole into a hug. “Don’t cry, Tolya. It’s alright.”

_ I’m sorry _ sticks in his throat — isn’t this what he wants? His private, angry dream, the one that sustained every sacrifice he’s made: to give Anatole Kuragin a taste of his own medicine. A taste of his own bitter heartbreak, the way he walks through life smashing things, leaving splintered shards in his wake, and never once doubting that he won’t break Fedya as well. 

He wants to make Anatole doubt in the same way he’s doubted, ache in the same way he’s ached; perhaps then it’ll feel like a relationship of equals.

_ Wanted _ . Fedya realises that with a flutter of disappointment, feeling Anatole trembling against him. Even now, even after a war and a fucking revolution, he’ll always crumble under the simple fact that he loves Anatole. And to love means to protect, to sacrifice, to colour the gaps of each pyrrhic victory, and count your losses behind closed doors. 

“Come on, Tolya,” he murmurs, putting an arm round Anatole’s shoulders and steering him towards the bed. Even this part is familiar — despite it all, other people seem to have a knack for making Anatole cry. Prince Vasily, Hélène, they’ve all managed to break into the whirlwind of his life; it’s just never been Fedya. “I wasn’t joking, you need to sleep. At the very least, you need to get all that bloody champagne out your system.”

He does, too; he doesn’t want to admit that a hardened sniper needed it to give him the balls to face a soft-handed socialite.

“What if I don’t want to sleep?” Anatole asks, voice soft and tired. 

“Tough luck.”

“Alright,  _ mother _ ,” says Anatole as he sits on the edge of the bed, leaning his cane against the bedside table. He begins to divest himself of shoes and clothes; Fedya decides not to look away.

It doesn’t feel the same as the many other times he’s seen Anatole undress, though. For starters, he was almost always helping — because Anatole had been too drunk or because —  _ never mind _ . Watching from a distance, Fedya can see how much weight he’s lost, the thin scars of forgotten battles settled against his shoulders like they’ve always been there. His stump a neat knot of scar tissue, as if it, too, has always existed.

“It’s rude to stare, Fedya.” Anatole’s voice has none of its usual tease in it, no unspoken  _ by all means, keep doing it _ . He just sounds exhausted. 

“Couldn’t help myself.” Now Fedya feels like he’s intruding, watching Anatole slide under the covers. “Sorry.”

_ Sorry for staring. Sorry for making you cry. Sorry for intruding on your night in the first place. Sorry for kissing you the last time we met. Sorry for falling in love with you at all, you beautiful, wonderful, terrible fucking  _ **_idiot_ ** _. Sorry for not letting you make your own mistakes. _

He turns to go, barely giving Anatole a second glance, until he’s by the door, and —

“Fedya. Wait.”

Of course he does. Of course he glances back, for once last glimpse of Anatole’s sleepy, melancholy smile.

“Thank you.”


End file.
